


Picture This, Sweetheart

by theskywasblue



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 19:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4576149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some reason, no one at the office believes Cullen is married</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picture This, Sweetheart

**Author's Note:**

> There was a discussion/prompt floating around Tumblr, which boiled down to "Modern AU - what if no one at the office believed Cullen had a husband, despite all his insistence to the contrary." Unfortunately, I didn't nearly do it justice.

The thing is, Cullen is a terrible liar; just  _terrible._ He stammers and he blushes – hell, he does that sometimes even when he's telling the  _truth_ – so he has no idea why everyone in the office is so quick to assume that he's lying about Dorian.

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. He knows that the whole thing started with Sera, who came into his office one afternoon, saw Dorian's picture perched on Cullen's desk, and asked him, “Isn't that the guy from the billboard?”

And then, instead of assuming that Cullen might actually be personally acquainted with the newest de Fer model, she leapt to the insane conclusion that Cullen was some kind of obsessed fan, who had cut Dorian's picture out of a magazine and framed it on his desk.

After that, the whole thing just sort of snowballed. Three weeks later, and Cullen could stand in the hallway and shout, “This is my  _husband_ ! He talks in his sleep! He has a tower of books next to our bed that is going to fall over and crush us both to death one day! He's deathly allergic to mushrooms!” and no one would believe him. They've all fallen into this strange black hole of Sera's fallacy, where Cullen is just some lunatic fan of a pretty man on a billboard.

Granted, Cullen doesn't  _deserve_ Dorian; he's always known that. He's not nearly as quick-witted, and though he enjoys a good book, he's not as well-read as Dorian either. He's certainly nowhere near as charming. There are days that Cullen can hardly get through a sentence without stammering. And that's to say nothing of his casual failures in the looks department; the scars, his subtle but inescapable limp...

What Dorian even sees in him is a mystery, really.

The complication is that, try as he might, Cullen can never seem to arrange it so that Dorian can meet anyone at the office. Whenever there's any kind of get-together outside of work hours, Dorian is always somewhere else. There's always a show, a photo shoot, or a party requiring his presence. Dorian loathes the parties particularly, but he's skilled at the artifice of them. He knows what hands to shake, when to smile, when to toast; where Cullen spends most of his time at such events lurking in corners looking like an awkward statue, so he rarely goes. He much prefers when Dorian is home, when it's just the two of them, with takeout food and endless reruns of old TV shows.

Which is the exact reason he's running late on Monday morning.

He wakes plenty early enough, before his alarm, in fact, pressed up against Dorian's warm back for the first time in three and half weeks. It's the most natural thing in the world to kiss the soft skin on the back of Dorian's neck, slip a hand past the loose waistband of Dorian's light pyjama pants, squeeze his hip, wake him with gentle, searching touches.

They both ignore the alarm, rather than letting it stop them; after which comes the necessary shower (and Dorian isn't about to let _that_ opportunity slip by, either) and then, Cullen is running out the front door with his shirt collar unbuttoned, his tie hanging loose around his neck, his hair stuck in wet ringlets, and a piece of dry toast crammed into his mouth.

He's still noticeably dishevelled when he steps off the elevator, fifteen minutes late, and almost runs over Varric.

“Curly!” Varric beams, slapping him on the back. “Where have _you_ been? Wait, don't tell me -”

“S-sorry,” Cullen wheezes, adjusting his tie. “Got a late start this morning.”

“I can see that,” Varric laughs. “Must've been a good night. You should tell me all about it.”

“Ah – no. I don't think so.” Cullen fusses with his hair, to try and hide the fact that his face is rapidly turning red. “I'm supposed to – reports, I mean.”

“Sure thing, Curly. I promise I won't breathe a word to Cassandra. Maybe I'll see you at lunch time, huh?”

“Right, of course,” Cullen says, absently, skittering away down the hall.

By eleven o'clock, Cullen is so deep into his work that Sera has to buzz his office three times before he notices and answers the intercom.

“There's someone here to see you,” she says, her voice crackling with an excitement that is hardly unusual, considering that she can hardly ever keep a straight face; but Cullen still doesn't expect to find Dorian waiting for him in the reception area.

“There you are! I was almost certain you were going to leave me sitting here all day.” Dorian takes hold of Cullen's tie, fussing with the obviously crooked knot, and kisses him – quite demurely – on the cheek, while Cullen is still trying to remember how to use his tongue to form words.

“What are you -”

Dorian clucks, “Well, there's a lovely _hello_ for you. I brought your lunch; you left it on the counter. Can't have you wasting away.”

Dorian rubs a hand, lovingly, over Cullen's stomach through his shirt. Cullen feels a rush of blood – not to his groin, thank the Maker, but to his face. “Th-thank you.”

Dorian hums, “Honestly, _amatus,_ sometimes I swear you'd lose your head if it wasn't attached. How _do_ you manage while I'm away?”

“Not well,” Cullen admits, with all sincerity, still feeling flush.

“Of course not,” Dorian chuckles, giving him another kiss, this one on the lips and slightly less chaste than before. “Now, I'll let you get back to work. Promise me you won't be late tonight; I've made reservations at that new Orlesian place downtown.”

“Alright.”

Dorian gives him one last kiss, then saunters to elevator with that perfect, catwalk stride that always leaves Cullen feeling a little light-headed. When Cullen turns around, almost every member of the office is standing around the reception desk, staring at him, wide-eyed.

“I -I -” He stammers, his face feeling like it's absolutely _on fire_. “I – uh -”

Without a word, Varric turns and stretches his hand, open-palmed, towards Sera, who hisses through her teeth, and produces a wad of crumpled bills from her pocket.

“You couldn't let me be right, just once?” She grumbles, handing over her losses as Cullen wars between outrage and smothering embarrassment. If he thought he could successfully launch himself through the plate-glass, just a few feet away, he might have done it.

“What is going on out here?” Cassandra's voice echoes through reception like a whip-crack, sending everyone scattering. “Get back to work, all of you!”

Cullen is the only one to wander away at a downright leisurely pace, feeling warm all through and unable to suppress his smile as his sits down with his pile of reports and Dorian's beaming photograph.

 


End file.
